x86 server in a xbox case

Granted, using raspberry pi like single board computers as home server is kinda cool. And environmental friendly. On the other hand, those things are often a tad slow. Some of the new ones aren't, though. Mine was a cubieboard 1, which is pretty neat because it has fast I/O (SATA and Ethernet) and a gig of ram. It did its main duties quite well. It handled my VDSL2 line with ease, shoved files via NFS around at a speed i was OK with and even played SD Videos without any trouble.More demanding tasks like web browsing, syncthing or even aptitude where quite painful, though. And worse, the machine started to have hiccups, mainly with lots of I/O via USB (second Ethernet and WiFi). After a while of heavy use USB devices started to lock.

Monitor: DIY from old notebook panel and LVDS->HDMI converter from Ebay

Disposition

i learned that i could not cool this thing down without to much noise. The Project stopped and most of the hardware was reused in my new, boring server. Case and mainboard are in storage to become something else. Maybe a file server for things like lan parties or the next c3. Anything where some fan noise is no issue.